Harold Finch
by Pickwick12
Summary: Who is Harold Finch, and why did he choose John Reese? Hope you enjoy. Takes place in the universe of the Sherlock Holmes stories.
1. Finch

Harold Finch. The name amused him, but it wasn't his any more than "John Reese" belonged to his tall associate. _Associate_. _Friend?_ Maybe. People pitied him when they saw the limp, even more if, like the little doctor, they found out what it came from—spinal fusion surgery. But he didn't mind it. What's a little spinal surgery when you've been around for 150 years? It reminded him he was still alive, that limp. No doubt in another 50 years, they'd have figured out a way to fix it anyhow.

Reese didn't understand why he'd been picked; that was clear. And it was better that way. Better that he not know it had been his eyes. The day Reese had first popped onto the screen was a day for missing. Finch only let himself miss his brother once every six months or so. Not like they'd seen each other often anyway when they were both alive, but the loss, nearly a hundred years gone now, still wrenched at his psyche. It was nearly unbelievable that such a brother could ever be dead.

Finch had never been one for doing things himself. He was the brain, the eyes, the knowledge, but not the doer. Staring at himself in the mirror, he'd always found eyes that saw and knew, but never eyes with the impetus to fix things. His brother's eyes had been different. There had always been something clear, something alive, something righteous in them. Something that couldn't let evil go on without stopping it. It was those eyes that had gotten him killed. And his death had changed Harold.

No one knew it had taken him 90 years to build The Machine, that his plans had been long in place before the US government had ever given a contract to an unassuming billionaire, that he had theorized before the first giant computer ever made it onto the first college campus. It wasn't September 11, one day in a long history of terrorism, that had given him the will. It was one lone bullet, the bullet that had taken his brother.

That's why his breath had caught in his chest the day John Reese's picture flashed onto the screen. Finch had looked into his eyes, and there was no question. Reese's record didn't matter, his expertise, his knowledge. Later on, Finch would realize how lucky he'd been in all those areas, how much like his brother Reese truly was, but it was those clear eyes, those righteous, uncompromising eyes, that had sealed the deal.

One rainy, fall morning, Harold limped over to his closet and pulled out his coat. Funny how little the standards for male attire had changed in 150 years. His object this morning was the New York Subway. He could have used a taxi, but he liked the subway; it was so much like the Tube in London. He slipped into a car and sat down, waiting for what he knew was coming. Sure enough, a tall, dark form came noiselessly down the middle of the car and sat down beside him. "Morning, Finch."

"Good morning, Mr. Reese."

He had to stop himself saying _Good morning, Sherlock_. It was so very similar.


	2. The Spider

_I've breached the space-time continuum._

_Not really._

Reese was absolutely sure that if anyone could breach the space-time continuum, it would surely be Harold Finch.

When he'd first met Harold, he'd been tempted to think of him as an ordinary man, albeit one with extraordinary abilities when it came to technology. Harold Finch—ordinary. It had been a very long time since he'd made the mistake of putting those words in the same sentence.

Now, when he thought of Harold, he saw a tiny spider with a giant web. The tiny man with the tiny spectacles led a life that was anything but small. His influence was so broad it sometimes staggered Reese to consider it. Reese had worked for entire organizations with spheres of influence smaller than Finch's.

Thinking of Finch made Reese's mind turn to his favorite childhood books. He'd been quite a reader then, back before his name sounded anything like _John Reese_, when he'd still had a mother and a father and hopes of a future that included professional basketball and an all-American family.

But maybe he should have known. Maybe he should have realized that an overwhelming obsession with stories about Sherlock Holmes meant something in the life of a boy. Maybe he should have realized that his life was destined for something different.

At first, Finch had reminded him of Moriarty, the nemesis of the great detective, the spider with a web that covered all of London. But Moriarty's web had been one of crime, and as Reese got to know Harold, he realized that, for all his quirks, the man was on the side of right.

No, after a while Reese's mind turned to a different character, to the vague, all-seeing presence of the detective's brother, Mycroft Holmes. Even as a child, he'd found the character fantastical and unrealistic, impossible. Too powerful, too influential, too inconspicuous. Reese's past in intelligence had confirmed his suspicions. It wasn't possible to be so powerful without anyone realizing.

And then he'd met Finch—living, breathing proof that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle hadn't been insane when he'd thought up the character of Mycroft Holmes. The more Reese thought about it, the more perfect it seemed.

One dark day, with rain pounding outside, John Reese stepped into the abandoned library that served both him and Finch as a headquarters. He was early, but he didn't mind. He pulled an old favorite off a shelf and began to read:

_The conclusions of every department are passed to him, and he is the central exchange, the clearinghouse, which makes out the balance. All other men are specialists, but his specialism is omniscience._

It was as if Conan Doyle had been describing Harold Finch.


	3. The Mind of the Maker

_I never eat when I'm in the field._

Such a simple thing, but it startled Harold so much he almost betrayed his surprise to his associate. He couldn't do that. Not yet, anyway. But Reese made it hard, with his unfailing attention to detail, his neatness, his dislike of police procedure, all the little things that made him so much like Sherlock. Harold seemed to notice new similarities every day.

But secrecy was all Harold had any more, and he couldn't bear to relinquish it. Secrecy and the Machine—really, they were one and the same. If Reese found out who he really was, the younger man would be able to understand why Harold had built it. Knowing that would be the key to everything; Reese would understand the Machine if he understood the mind of its maker.

Even in the days before computers, the long days in dusty offices with secretaries writing in shorthand, Harold had known that knowledge was currency and secrecy was power. He had maintained his position by never relinquishing anything he knew unless doing so would gain him something more valuable in return. He always traded up, never down. With everyone except Sherlock.

His brother had been different. With him, he'd always had an understanding. Sherlock could always look at him and tell in an instant where he'd been and what he knew. Harold hadn't minded that. Somehow, it had been satisfying, even comforting, to have one person who understood everything and thought nothing of it.

It frightened Harold, just a little, when he realized how close he'd come to telling John things he meant to conceal. The quizzical expression, commanding stance, and soft voice touched something in him that nothing had reached since his brother's passing. For the first time in years, he felt comfortable.

Comfort was a scary thing; after all, John was not Sherlock. And yet—the eyes were the same. Harold wondered how much John saw.


	4. Moriarty

Moriarty wore a woman's face.

She was Root, with her wild eyes and the mixture of insanity, obsession, and cold calculation. Root, the root of all things, just as Moriarty had been the spider at the center of the web.

Harold had long-ago realized that Moriarty was everywhere, in all times and all places. It didn't matter how often he was vanquished. He would return, with a new guise, a new method, a new evil.

He saw the same malevolence and obsession stare out of the woman's eyes, and he recognized his old foe. Sherlock's old foe. As surely as Sherlock had helped the unassuming professor meet his death at the falls, the evil that had consumed him had spread and infected others. Other Moriartys.

People thought Elias was the greatest enemy, Elias and the network of men and women he commanded, even from prison, to do his bidding. But they were wrong. Moriarty was more subtle than that. Moriarty was in every shadow, in the background of every snapshot, never seen but always felt. Elias had his guns and his bombs, but Root, she could take down a city with a keystroke.

He had never even tried to explain to John. Perhaps some day—perhaps, if they lived to speak again. For now, knowing was all he could manage, knowing and calculating.

He needed John. If Moriarty was back again, he needed his partner more than ever before. He needed him like a brother. Like Sherlock.


	5. The Stranger's Room

The Library was peaceful, a safe haven.

No one could intrude there except at Harold's bidding, when he turned it into the Stranger's Room. He didn't mind Reese. Reese was quiet, too. He enjoyed the serene atmosphere the way Sherlock had always enjoyed the Diogenes Club, the place Harold had co-founded more than a century before.

There was no more Diogenes Club in London because there were no longer enough men (or women, for that matter, he wouldn't have minded) who put a high premium on minding their own business and letting other people mind theirs. The world was full of people who only ever talked to each other and never accomplished anything.

Reese understood, as Sherlock had understood.

That's what Harold thought, anyway. He thought it until Bear took up residence among the stacks. Bear was a dog. Harold did not care for dogs. Sherlock had never brought Gladstone, his sad-looking but highly intelligent pet beast to the Club. He wouldn't have dared.

But John brought Bear, and there he was, staring up at Harold with eyes that looked as mysterious and clever as his own. Of course John had adopted a smart dog. That was a given. He was more beautiful than Gladstone, too. But Harold did not like dogs.

Did John intend for him to make the Library into a permanent Stranger's Room, the only place they had ever let other people visit and speak in the Diogenes Club? Bear intruded constantly, his cold nose begging for games and stroking.

Perhaps Harold had liked Gladstone. Perhaps he'd been just the slightest bit jealous of the way the small, squat, ugly little thing would perch on his brother's knee and stare at him as if he could read Sherlock's mind. He began to wonder if Bear could read his mind.

Harold did not like dogs. He did not like them at all. But he was beginning to like Bear.


	6. Faraday

Moriarty was in the Library.

Harold had once, ages before, brought a criminal to the Diogenes Club, someone he was keeping an eye on for his brother. He had enjoyed it then; it had been a bit of a lark to see the surprise on the other members' faces and relish the fact that they weren't allowed to speak, even though their curiosity was eating them alive. Sherlock had trusted him, and he had delivered the prisoner into the hands of the law.

But it had not been Moriarty.

Keeping Root in the Library, contained in his simple, beautiful Faraday Cage, was like trying to trap a typhoon in a tiny box. There was a reason Sherlock had gone to the Falls with the professor, willing to give his own life if it meant ridding the world of Moriarty's evil. The cascading water had pulled the man's soul into its inexorable depths; Harold doubted the Library could ever have such power. Reese would have battled the woman to the depths, just as Sherlock had, but Harold could not bear to repeat the experience.

Day after day, he was left with a Faraday Cage in his Library and his mind, a place that contained unsettling eyes and an imprisoned mind. Harold did not know what to do, and he could not afford to let Reese be Sherlock, not this time.


End file.
